Wise picks ex-NICE CEO Barak Eilam as next chair
Wise has named a former enterprise-software CEO to succeed chair David Wells. The reporting says little on why, so the open questions matter.
Wise has named Barak Eilam, former NICE chief executive, as non-executive director and chair designate to succeed David Wells, according to Finextra and AJ Bell. AJ Bell reports Wells will leave the chair and board in April. Eilam's background is in enterprise software rather than payments.
The Ledger Desk · 3 min read- Finextra reports Wise has named Barak Eilam, former NICE CEO, as non-executive director and chair designate.
- AJ Bell reports David Wells will leave the chair and the board in April, and that Eilam will also chair the nominating and corporate governance committees. Wise's own filing should be treated as the authority on both.
- AJ Bell reports Eilam led NICE as CEO from 2014 to 2024 and currently sits on the boards of FactSet, CCC Intelligent Solutions and Similarweb.
- Eilam's record is in enterprise software, not payments or banking, so regulatory fluency is the open question for a chair of a regulated money-transfer firm.
- The reporting does not say whether strategy or the executive team changes. Treat any such reading as inference.
Wise has named Barak Eilam, the former chief executive of NICE, as non-executive director and chair designate, Finextra reports. AJ Bell's coverage says he will succeed David Wells, who it reports will leave the chair and the board in April. The sources describe a succession, not a strategic reset. What the choice shows is the profile the board wanted: a long-serving software chief executive, not a payments or banking operator.
What the reporting says
Eilam joins as a non-executive director first, with the chair role to follow. AJ Bell reports that Wells leaves in April and that Eilam will also chair the nominating and corporate governance committees. It also quotes co-founder and CEO Kristo Kaarmann crediting Wells with growth in the customer base. The April date and the committee roles come from one outlet's account. Wise's own regulatory announcement is the primary record for the effective date.
Eilam's profile and the gap it leaves
AJ Bell reports Eilam spent 25 years at NICE and led it as CEO from 2014 to 2024, and that he sits on the boards of FactSet, CCC Intelligent Solutions and Similarweb. That is listed-company and scale-up governance experience. It is not payments or banking experience. For a chair of a regulated money-transfer firm, how quickly he builds fluency in safeguarding and regulatory capital is a fair question to put to the board.
Continuity at the top
Wells has chaired Wise since December 2021, when the board named him independent chair, according to Talent4Boards. A designate period gives Eilam time on the board before taking the chair, which limits the risk of a hard handover. The nominating committee role signals that he will help shape future board composition. Neither source says why the board chose him, so the reasoning is not on the record.
What to watch next
Three details will show how much this changes. The first is the confirmed effective date in Wise's filing. The second is whether the board adds directors with payments or regulatory backgrounds around the handover. The third is how the nominating and corporate governance committees are reconstituted under Eilam. Until Wise's announcement is read directly, treat the April timing and committee roles as reported, not confirmed.
- Who is Wise's chair designate?
- Barak Eilam, a former chief executive of NICE, has been named non-executive director and chair designate of Wise, according to Finextra.
- Who does Eilam replace, and when?
- AJ Bell reports he succeeds David Wells, who it says will leave the chair and the board in April. The exact effective date should be checked against Wise's own announcement.
- Does the appointment signal a change in Wise's strategy?
- Neither source reports a strategy change. A chair succession is a governance step, and any link to strategy would be the desk's inference, not a reported fact.